5.  The applicants, Ms Lidiya Musayevna Taziyeva (“the first applicant”), Mr Askhab Musayevich Taziyev (“the second applicant”), Ms Pyatimat Musayevna Malsagova (“the third applicant”), Ms Zareta Musayevna Taziyeva (“the fourth applicant”), Mr Aslan Musayevich Taziyev (“the fifth applicant”), Ms Makka Umarovna Taziyeva (“the sixth applicant”), Ms Milana Aslanovna Taziyeva (“the seventh applicant”), Ms Ayshat Aslanovna Taziyeva (“the eighth applicant”) and Ms Rabiya Aslanovna Taziyeva (“the ninth applicant”), are Russian nationals who were born in 1940, 1966, 1971, 1976, 1979, 1982, 2000, 2001 and 2004 respectively and live in the village of Nasyr-Kort, Ingushetia, Russia.
6.  The applicants (a mother, her two daughters, two sons, a daughter-in-law and three grandchildren) lived together in a house in Nasyr-Kort.
7.  On 27 December 2005 officers of the Federal Security Service of Russia (“the FSB”) and of the Ministry of the Interior of Ingushetia went to the applicants’ home in a search for Mr Ali Taziyev, another son of the first applicant, whom they suspected of terrorist offences. The force consisted of about 100 armed men in black masks and military uniforms, an armoured personnel carrier, six or seven minibuses and two cars without state identification numbers. Mr Ali Taziyev had been declared dead by a court judgment of 6 July 2001. According to the applicants at the time of their submissions, they have not seen him since 1998.
8.  At 6.40 a.m. the armoured personnel carrier broke down the gates of the applicants’ house and entered the courtyard, damaging the fence roof, walls, the vineyard and a parked car. The soldiers ordered the applicants, who mostly did not have daytime clothes on (except for the second applicant, who was at work) to come out of the house. They tied up the fifth applicant and made him move around inside the house and its courtyard, threatening him with a gun and demanding to know the whereabouts of his brother, Mr Ali Taziyev.
9.  The women and children of the applicants’ family were made to stay outside in sub-zero temperatures, and were then allowed to go to a neighbour’s house, but only several hours later. Some more hours later the fifth applicant heard the armed men saying on their radio that the information that a fighter was present in the applicants’ house was false. At around 12.30 p.m. the servicemen left, without finding any trace of Mr Ali Taziyev.
10.  After the soldiers had left, the applicants (joined by the second applicant) found that furniture, carpets and other items inside the house had been damaged, and that money, jewellery and documents belonging to the third and fourth applicants had disappeared.
11.  The applicants took photographs and a video of their house and yard, showing the damage caused.
12.  The Government disputed the applicants’ version of the events. In their view, when the security forces had approached the applicants’ house they had explained the purpose of their visit, but the applicants had refused to open the gate. They were therefore obliged to ram it with the armoured vehicle. The applicants had refused to cooperate and had insulted the officers. None of the applicants had been forced to stay outside for a long period without appropriate clothes. The time the women and children had spent outside was no longer than two hours. During the search none of the applicants’ belongings were damaged or stolen.
13.  Immediately after the incident the first applicant contacted the local police complaining about this incident, in which State agents had been involved, and requesting an inspection of the house. In a written criminal complaint sent the same day, she complained that property both inside and outside the house had been destroyed, and that money, jewellery and documents had been taken. Throughout the subsequent months the first applicant continued to send letters containing these complaints to numerous other authorities.
14.  A person from the Nazran District Prosecutor’s Office came to carry out an inspection the day after the applicant had complained. Photographs were taken recording the condition of the gate to the courtyard, which had been destroyed, the damage to furniture inside the house, and the general disorder in the house.
15.  On 28 December 2005 the third, fourth, fifth and sixth applicants were questioned. They described the events, detailing the destruction and loss of their property.
16.  On 3 January 2005 local police officers were questioned, and testified that on 27 December 2005 a special security operation had been carried out at the applicants’ house. When one of the police officers had approached the group of heavily armed men in masks, about 100 metres from the applicants’ house, he had been told that they were servicemen conducting a special operation to apprehend terrorists. The police officer had not been given any further information on the nature of the operation and the police had not been allowed to go any nearer to the applicants’ house.
17.  On 4 January 2006 a NGO, MASHR, sent a letter to the Ministry of the Interior of Ingushetia, requesting an investigation of the events of 27 December 2005. The letter also stated that the applicants had been held outside the house in freezing weather for several hours. The letter was added to the investigation file of the Nazran District Prosecutor’s Office. A letter with almost identical content was sent to the same addressee on 10 January 2006 by another NGO. This letter is also part of the investigation file.
18.  On 7 January 2006 the Nazran District Prosecutor’s Office closed the case, holding that there was no evidence substantiating the applicants’ submissions.
19.  On 30 January 2006 the Nazran deputy prosecutor set aside that decision and forwarded the case to the military prosecutor’s office of the United Group Alignment (“the UGA”) for further investigation, on the ground that members of the Federal Security Service of Russia had also taken part in the operation, and only the military prosecutor was empowered to investigate allegations against officers of the FSB. The military prosecutor received the file on 25 February 2006.
20.  On 28 February 2006 the military prosecutor closed the investigation, stating that no evidence had been found suggesting that FSB officers had committed any crime. The decision stated that it had not been possible to question the FSB officers, as they had been redeployed back to their regular places of service. It does not seem from the decision that the military prosecutor took any investigative steps.
21.  On 6 June 2006 the military prosecutor’s office quashed the decision, considering it premature, and sent the case back for further investigation. It noted that the servicemen had not been questioned, the investigation had failed to ascertain what other agencies had taken part in the operation, and the need or otherwise for the destruction of the property had not been assessed.
22.  On 9 June 2006 the military prosecutor again closed the investigation. In addition to his previous decision of 28 February 2006 he noted that the gate to the courtyard had been destroyed because the applicants had refused to open it.
23.  On 4 December 2006 the first applicant complained to the prosecutor of Ingushetia that she had not been declared a victim in the investigation concerning the events of 27 December 2005 in which property had been stolen from her house. She also mentioned that she had lodged the present application with the Court, and attached copies of the applicants’ statements sent to the Court. In those documents the complaint was made that they had been forced to stand outside in freezing weather without appropriate clothing, and that the fifth applicant had been threatened at gunpoint.
24.  In his reply of 15 January 2007 the military prosecutor, to whom the letter had been forwarded, merely referred to the previous decisions taken in the case.
25.  On 27 April 2009 the first deputy military prosecutor of the UGA quashed the decision of 9 June 2006 as premature and remitted the case file for additional investigation. He held that the servicemen who had taken part in the operation had not been identified or questioned, and that the substance of the complaints had been neither refuted nor confirmed.
26.  The Court has received no information about this further investigation.
27.  On 13 June 2006 the first applicant lodged a court action under Article 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, complaining of lack of investigation of her complaints of theft and that she had not been formally declared a victim in the proceedings conducted by the Nazran District Prosecutor’s Office. She requested that the Prosecutor’s Office’s inaction be declared unlawful and that it be ordered to conduct an effective investigation and prosecute those responsible for the theft of their property during the house search. She also mentioned that during the search of the house they had been made to stand outside in freezing weather without appropriate clothing for several hours.
28.  On 16 August and 4 December 2006 the first applicant complained that no court hearings had been scheduled in her case.
29.  On 27 December 2006 the Nazran District Court dismissed her action, noting that the investigation file had been forwarded to the competent military prosecutor.
30.  On 28 December 2006 the first applicant appealed to the Supreme Court of Ingushetia, arguing that the search had been conducted by the security forces of both the Federal and the Republic Ministries of the Interior, which had no connection with the military prosecutors.
31.  There is no further information about those court proceedings. On 30 July 2009 the applicants informed the Court that they had not yet received any decision on their appeal.